How have you been this week? Been feeling ok? Or have you had a touch of flu perhaps? Been confined to bed? Been unable to travel to Berlin? If your travel plans were indeed disrupted owing to illness, then you don't need to feel too guilty. You are in good company. Well, you are in company. Good or bad, that's for you to decide, the company being that of national minister for energy, industry and tourism, José Manuel Soria, and Balearics president, José Ramon Bauzá. The two Joes both came down with a bad dose of political infirmity.
Mallorca Joe, i.e. the president, had, even before seeking a refund from or rearrangement with Air Berlin (something that's probably not too difficult), put in a sick note and absented himself from the presidential seat in the Balearics Parliament. The empty chair was poignantly photographed next to a serious-looking vice-president, who probably wasn't serious on account of fearing for the presidential well-being but because he was pressing the parliamentary case for him and his fellow cabinet members enjoying a 25% increase in their salaries. Antonio Gómez, the vice-president, was mayor of Escorca in a former life, a task which entailed administering a municipality comprising one man, his dog and several hundred mountain goats. Had he not been reborn as the governmental VP, he might still be mayor of Escorca and be struggling to draw any form of salary in future, thanks to his friends in Madrid having changed the rules regarding salaries for mayors of municipalities with barely any inhabitants (other than the goats).
On a better earner therefore than he would have been on back in the mountains, the VP took issue with legal opinion on the small matter of the 25% salary rise. This legal opinion had been offered by the Balearics High Court, which had revoked the rise, but the VP was having none of it. The cabinet's own legal opinion begged to differ with m'luds at the High Court. Moreover, the rise was fair because the total salary bill for cabinet members had in fact gone down because there were fewer members than previously. Which is an interesting piece of logic and one that the VP might care to run past workforces which remain following major job losses and which have not experienced a rise; more likely, they have experienced a fall in wages and greater demands on their working hours and responsibilities.
As he was already on a sickie, Bauzá's change of travel plans might have been anticipated, but the ranks of the press massed at Berlin's ITB travel fair were none too impressed by both his absence and that of Canaries Joe, minister Soria. There are various sub-plots where the two Joes are concerned, one being that they don't see eye to eye other than for Bauzá to eye Soria up with a suggestive I'm-after-your-job look (or so it has been alleged). But the bigger sub-plot is the one to do with the oil exploration business, Soria having reported the content of a private conversation in which Bauzá admitted to knowing that there was nothing that Madrid could do to prevent exploration going ahead. The two Joes aren't the best of mates just at the moment, and they weren't about to kiss and make up in Berlin. Had they, then they would have passed on even more political infirmity bugs.
A press conference at which oil was going to feature large was, therefore, cancelled, leaving the hacks decidedly hacked off. A general view coming out of Berlin was that it was better to keep mum about the oil and not spoil the good news about even more thousands of Germans descending on Balearics beaches this summer. But, though Soria was away, nursing his ministerial malady, his second-in-command at tourism, the Mallorcan Isabel Borrego, hadn't succumbed to the virus that was decimating the political class. She was in Berlin and she spoke to tour operators and yes the O-word did crop up together with the G-word. Much to everyone's astonishment, she said that all this prospecting that might take place off the Balearics wasn't for oil after all. Only for gas. So, there we are. No worries about any oil being washed up on the beaches, because the secretary-of-state for tourism has said so.
Showing posts with label José Ramón Bauza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label José Ramón Bauza. Show all posts
Saturday, March 08, 2014
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Not The Stupid Economy: Mallorca's elections and opinion polls
Local elections in Mallorca and the Balearics are to be held next spring. An opinion poll conducted on behalf of "Ultima Hora" suggests that the current main opposition party, the Partido Popular, will win with an overall majority, thus negating the need for a coalition pact.
Since regional autonomy in the early '80s, the PP has traditionally been the party of Balearics government, firstly as the Coalición Popular and then as the PP in its own right. It lost for the first time in 1999, to a pact headed by the current socialist (PSOE/PSIB*) president Francesc Antich, regained an overall majority in 2003, under the disgraced ex-president Jaume Matas, and then lost out again to an Antich coalition in 2007, despite receiving more votes than other parties. For the PP to now seemingly be heading towards electoral victory suggests a re-establishment of Mallorca and the islands' social and political norm - conservatism.
While one can nuance the poll as being an expression of dissatisfaction with socialist government and management of the economic crisis, both at the local and the national level, the poll also reveals that the PSOE is on target to gain more of a share of the vote. It is the nationalist party, the Unió Mallorquina, which stands to lose most at the next election; it faces virtual oblivion. This, therefore, begs a question as to the influence of political corruption on voter intention. The UM has been deeply mired in scandal over the past couple of years, but the PP has been similarly tainted by the anti-corruption cases that have gone right to the top of its last administration - to Jaume Matas. The socialists, on the other hand, have escaped the sleaze, just about.
So does the poll simply reflect a reversion to the status quo of the two dominant parties - the PP and PSOE - or is there also the influence of corruption?
The PP has been looking to clean up its act, but an almighty row has erupted within its ranks as a result. Its leader and presidential candidate, José Ramón Bauza, has stated that any politician implicated in a scandal will not stand in the coming elections, which might rule all of them out, you might think. Bauza has gone so far as to say that if any charge levelled at him from his time as mayor of Marratxi were to be forthcoming, then he would step aside.
The opposition to Bauza's stance stems from what could be unjust and unproven allegations. Not every politician implicated in a corruption case is necessarily guilty. But one has an equivocal situation, because in light of all the scandals, Antich drew up an ethical code under which investigations for any alleged wrongdoing were grounds for resignation. Yet, the president, whilst supporting the position of his main political opponent in asserting that this is not "unjust", has said that he would not apply the same principle to his own party. The current socialist tourism and employment minister, Joana Barceló, has faced her own local difficulties dating back to her time at the Council of Menorca. Her case has been "archived", i.e. nothing has been proven, but Antich could be accused of double standards.
Bauza's determination to clean up the PP is laudable enough, but he opens himself and his party up to potential mischief-making. One can already hear the whispers of dirty tricks being plotted in the election machines of other parties. Bauza has another problem. And that is that some in the party believe that he has moved close to his one-time rival for the leadership of the PP, Carlos Delgado, mayor of Calvia. Moreover, it is felt that Bauza is too Madrid-centric, a possible puppet of the party's national organisation and less inclined to stand up for local Mallorcan (Balearic) interests. While he has attempted to rebut the idea that Delgado has in some way been influencing him, it might be remembered that Delgado is antipathetic towards Catalanism; he has made a virtue of not speaking Catalan.
The poll could be seen as voter support for Bauza's clean-up, but the party's in-figthing threatens to undermine his good intentions and to place an obstacle in the way of its resuming its role as the, if you will, natural party of Balearics government. Bauza and his party may already have given the opponents an own goal because of the alleged closeness to Madrid; the UM and the socialists will exploit it for all its worth. Bauza, however, could respond by accusing Antich of hypocrisy. The elections should be about the key issue of the economy, but they're likely to be overshadowed by the smell of corruption and the parochialism of insular, nationalist interests.
* Note: The PSOE is the socialist party at national level; the PSIB is the Balearics version.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Since regional autonomy in the early '80s, the PP has traditionally been the party of Balearics government, firstly as the Coalición Popular and then as the PP in its own right. It lost for the first time in 1999, to a pact headed by the current socialist (PSOE/PSIB*) president Francesc Antich, regained an overall majority in 2003, under the disgraced ex-president Jaume Matas, and then lost out again to an Antich coalition in 2007, despite receiving more votes than other parties. For the PP to now seemingly be heading towards electoral victory suggests a re-establishment of Mallorca and the islands' social and political norm - conservatism.
While one can nuance the poll as being an expression of dissatisfaction with socialist government and management of the economic crisis, both at the local and the national level, the poll also reveals that the PSOE is on target to gain more of a share of the vote. It is the nationalist party, the Unió Mallorquina, which stands to lose most at the next election; it faces virtual oblivion. This, therefore, begs a question as to the influence of political corruption on voter intention. The UM has been deeply mired in scandal over the past couple of years, but the PP has been similarly tainted by the anti-corruption cases that have gone right to the top of its last administration - to Jaume Matas. The socialists, on the other hand, have escaped the sleaze, just about.
So does the poll simply reflect a reversion to the status quo of the two dominant parties - the PP and PSOE - or is there also the influence of corruption?
The PP has been looking to clean up its act, but an almighty row has erupted within its ranks as a result. Its leader and presidential candidate, José Ramón Bauza, has stated that any politician implicated in a scandal will not stand in the coming elections, which might rule all of them out, you might think. Bauza has gone so far as to say that if any charge levelled at him from his time as mayor of Marratxi were to be forthcoming, then he would step aside.
The opposition to Bauza's stance stems from what could be unjust and unproven allegations. Not every politician implicated in a corruption case is necessarily guilty. But one has an equivocal situation, because in light of all the scandals, Antich drew up an ethical code under which investigations for any alleged wrongdoing were grounds for resignation. Yet, the president, whilst supporting the position of his main political opponent in asserting that this is not "unjust", has said that he would not apply the same principle to his own party. The current socialist tourism and employment minister, Joana Barceló, has faced her own local difficulties dating back to her time at the Council of Menorca. Her case has been "archived", i.e. nothing has been proven, but Antich could be accused of double standards.
Bauza's determination to clean up the PP is laudable enough, but he opens himself and his party up to potential mischief-making. One can already hear the whispers of dirty tricks being plotted in the election machines of other parties. Bauza has another problem. And that is that some in the party believe that he has moved close to his one-time rival for the leadership of the PP, Carlos Delgado, mayor of Calvia. Moreover, it is felt that Bauza is too Madrid-centric, a possible puppet of the party's national organisation and less inclined to stand up for local Mallorcan (Balearic) interests. While he has attempted to rebut the idea that Delgado has in some way been influencing him, it might be remembered that Delgado is antipathetic towards Catalanism; he has made a virtue of not speaking Catalan.
The poll could be seen as voter support for Bauza's clean-up, but the party's in-figthing threatens to undermine his good intentions and to place an obstacle in the way of its resuming its role as the, if you will, natural party of Balearics government. Bauza and his party may already have given the opponents an own goal because of the alleged closeness to Madrid; the UM and the socialists will exploit it for all its worth. Bauza, however, could respond by accusing Antich of hypocrisy. The elections should be about the key issue of the economy, but they're likely to be overshadowed by the smell of corruption and the parochialism of insular, nationalist interests.
* Note: The PSOE is the socialist party at national level; the PSIB is the Balearics version.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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